


Space Heater

by Vorta_Scholar



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Trektober, Trektober 2020, cuddling for warmth, trektober2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27038533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vorta_Scholar/pseuds/Vorta_Scholar
Summary: The environmental controls, namely the central heating system, are acting up, leaving the station freezing. Kira finds herself huddling in front of an almost three-hundred-year-old space heater with Jadzia.
Relationships: Jadzia Dax/Kira Nerys
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Space Heater

**Author's Note:**

> For Trektober 2020, Day 15
> 
> Prompt: Cuddling for warmth

The environmental controls were acting up. Again. In all her time spent on DS9, even back when it was still run by the Cardassians, however, she had never known the station to suddenly go this cold. And it sure was cold. It was freezing. She was surprised not to see icicles hanging from the ceilings and the handrails of the turbolifts. Sometimes when this happened, it would suddenly be boiling hot, and sometimes the automatic misters would somehow kick on after years of non-use, suddenly dampening not only the entire crew, but also all of the controls in Ops. It was terribly frustrating living on a Cardassian station to begin with, but little things like this made it all the worst, especially since the Federation came in and started cannibalizing all the different controls and systems, which was what likely made it so cold right now.

“Don’t worry, Major,” Chief O’Brien had told her. “We should have things under control by this afternoon.”

Now, it was twenty-two-hundred hours, and she was beginning to wonder when “this afternoon” would come.

 _Maybe he meant Earth time_ _,_ she thought with a bitter laugh as she shrugged on a third cardigan.

“Computer, what time is it in Dublin, Ireland on Earth?” she asked.

**_“It is four thirty-seven A.M. in Dublin, Ireland.”_ **

“Great,” she said, shaking her head. “What about San Francisco, California?”

**_“It is eight thirty-seven P.M. in San Francisco, California, USA.”_ **

“Well, that doesn’t help.”

She laid another blanket over the comforter on her bed and pulled them back to climb under the covers, and she pulled them all the way up to her chin. She had to at least try to get some sleep, she thought, and maybe, if she was lucky, she’d wake up sweating and find that the Chief had in fact got the environmental controls back to the way they were supposed to be.

An hour went by.

Two

Three.

And she still had not fallen asleep.

Her teeth were chattering, and her whole body was shaking. She reached over to her bedside table and grabbed her comm badge.

“K-Kira to O’Brien,” she stammered.

**_“O’Brien here.”_ **

“How close are we, Chief?” she asked.

 **_“Can’t be much longer,”_ ** he said.

Not exactly helpful.

“How-how much longer? I-if you had to guess.”

 **_“An hour,”_ ** he said. **_“Maybe two. Three tops.”_ **

“Oh, God,” she muttered. “Okay. Thank you, Chief.”

**_“Alright.”_ **

Kira sighed and closed her eyes, and she tried one more time to get to sleep. And just when she thought she was almost about to drift off, there came a loud bang from next door, followed by a low whirring noise which jolted her awake. It didn’t sound like the environmental controls. In fact, it couldn’t have been because she didn’t feel a single breath of heat.

It sounded like it was coming from Dax’s quarters.

Kira jumped up, grabbing her phaser, and ran out the door to Dax’s quarters and pressed the button to request entry.

“Come in!” Jadzia shouted over the noise, and the doors slid open.

For a moment, Kira just stood in the doorway, looking at her friend sitting on the floor, huddled right up in front of a small, white plastic...thing.

Kira didn’t know what it was, but she was pretty sure it was what was making the noise, and it had a long wire which appeared to have been cut and then spliced with another wire inside the bulkhead.

“Uh,” Kira said.

“Quick, come in!” Jadzia said. “Shut the door before you let any of the heat out.”

“Heat?” Kira asked, and she stepped in, letting the door shut behind her.

“Yeah,” Jadzia said excitedly, and maybe a bit proud, too. “I was surprised it still worked. It’s over two hundred years old.”

“It?”

“This,” she said, pointing at it. “A space heater. It belonged to Lela, my first host.”

“That’s a heater?” Kira said, coming closer but keeping her distance from it.

Surprisingly, she could feel a significant amount of heat coming from it, blowing against her ankles and lower calves.

“Yeah, come here. We can share,” Jadzia said, holding her blanket open, inviting Kira to sit on the floor beside her and share her blanket.

Kira looked at her, eyes wide for a moment before agreeing and sitting beside Jadzia, letting her wrap her arm and the blanket around her as the two of them sat in front of the heater. It felt nice. She laid her head on Jadzia’s shoulder and closed her eyes, leaning closer to her.

“Nice, right?” Jadzia asked, her voice quiet as she laid her head against Kira’s.

“Mhm,” Kira hummed. “Is it safe?”

“Should be,” Jadzia said. “I mean, Lela used it for forty years and it never killed her.”

She laughed, but noticing Kira wasn’t amused, stopped.

“Really, it should be fine,” she said. “It has a safety mechanism that shuts it off if it starts to overheat.”

“Okay,” Kira said, relaxing again.

* * *

Kira woke to a soft chiming sound. An alarm. But it didn’t sound like hers. And it was about an hour early. Groggily, she tried to sit up, but found her body entwined with another, both of them tangled up in a large, fluffy, hot blanket.

The environmental controls must have been back online, and not only that, the heater was still blasting them with hot air.

“Dax,” she murmured.

“Hmph.”

“Your alarm,” Kira said.

“Computer, shut off alarm,” Jadzia slurred sleepily, but made no move to get up.

The alarm shut off with one final mechanical chime.

Kira wriggled her way free of Jadzia and the blanket. Looking down at her, Kira smiled, admiring how peaceful she looked, how beautiful. She sighed, and turned and walked toward the door.

Just before she reached it, however, she heard, “See you in Ops.”

“See you in Ops,” she said back, laughing quietly to herself as she made her way out of Dax’s quarters and back to her own.


End file.
